I should never, ever go into bookstores.
Aug. 7th, 2009 04:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselkingBookstores are very bad for my wallet.
I picked up:
* The rest of Kim Harrison's "Dead Witch Walking" series, which, despite the heavy Buffy The Vampire Shagger vibe you get from the cover and back, is actually worth reading.
A note: I *hate* these books. Hate 'em. The characters are luddites who have a crippling fear of tomatoes!
The supernatural-side detective agency has an open policy of murdering their own agents who try to quit!
The human-side detective agency whose *entire purpose* is to protect humanity from supernaturals doesn't employ supernaturals (they might be a threat) and, worse, doesn't employ *anyone who knows anything about supernaturals* (they know too much! They might be corrupt!) and doesn't even bother telling their *field agents* some basic publicly available knowledge like "killing a vampire makes it REALLY REALLY ANGRY. Don't use guns on vampires, for fear you might hit them."
The phenomenally powerful master vampire who runs the city's "underworld"? Runs a pizza joint. Literally. As in, he cooks there. BECAUSE HE CAN.
And the villain! The villain is an EEEEVIL drug dealer! You know, completely banned, beyond the pale, untouchable burn-you-at-the-stake drugs.... like INSULIN. He sells A CURE FOR ALZHEIMERS. Want your cancer treated? EEEEEEEVILMAN will hook your ass up! But he has to keep it a secret, because BIOLOGY IS ILLEGAL (see also: why everyone is terrified of tomatoes). They get 3/4 of the way through the first book before the author remembers that this is the BAD GUY and has him randomly murder an innocent man in front of witnesses to remind us which side we're supposed to be on.
Oh, hey, want to catch a leprechaun? The best trick is to slap some charmed handcuffs on 'em. And by "charmed" I mean you need a pink heart, a yellow moon, an orange star, and a green clover....
I hate these books so much. I bought the rest of the series and plan to have a wonderful time yelling at them as I read them, because they're like crack. They're *so absurd* that they're hilarious, and yet nobody inside them ever acknowledges just how goddamn wacky they are - they're done completely straightfaced!
And if you can't laugh at the demon's antics and his constant "oooh, I'm a dick! I'm gonna getcha! Them's GOOD EATS! And now I'm going to just be a jerk again, just because I can!" antics, you have no soul. But he will sell you one, cheap!
* The first three Dresden Files books. There was a boxed set, and everyone keeps telling me to read Jim Butcher. So now I has them.
* The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue, and Saturn's Children by Charlie Stross. Because I keep meaning to get these. I like giving money to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
autopope.
* John Scalzi's "Agent To The Stars". Because I'd like him to win a bet about how releasing the book for free online drives up print sales. And also because I hate reading non-physical book-length documents - they're inconvenient.
* David Weber's "Storm From The Shadows". Because I loves me some space opera crack. I really don't care if you can always figure out who's unambiguously wrong by checking their opinions again Harrington's[1] or that the "oooh, scary slavers" appeared out of nowhere to attain Monster Heel status with an entirely undeserved blowjob push a couple of books back, pushing aside the bad guys we all wanted to pay to see lose - the important part is that we've got high-adventure Age Of Sail-ish books with hilarious characters. It's like Horatio Nelson and Horatio Hornblower were given lasercannons, people. You cannot go wrong giving a lasercannon to Admiral Nelson.
But yeah. I went into the bookshop with the intention of buying just one book. And then I just kept seeing *just one more*....
(PS: Massive Twilight rack, I weep for humanity. Orson Scott Card reduced to a single copy of Ender's Game, shelved up top in a corner? That makes me a little more optimistic for the future of the species.)
[1]: Disagree with Honor Harrington = absolutely always wrong. Agreeing with Harrington doesn't mean *right*, but disagreeing is ALWAYS wrong and agreeing may mean that you're still wrong, but at least you're the least wrong possible under the circumstances.
I picked up:
* The rest of Kim Harrison's "Dead Witch Walking" series, which, despite the heavy Buffy The Vampire Shagger vibe you get from the cover and back, is actually worth reading.
A note: I *hate* these books. Hate 'em. The characters are luddites who have a crippling fear of tomatoes!
The supernatural-side detective agency has an open policy of murdering their own agents who try to quit!
The human-side detective agency whose *entire purpose* is to protect humanity from supernaturals doesn't employ supernaturals (they might be a threat) and, worse, doesn't employ *anyone who knows anything about supernaturals* (they know too much! They might be corrupt!) and doesn't even bother telling their *field agents* some basic publicly available knowledge like "killing a vampire makes it REALLY REALLY ANGRY. Don't use guns on vampires, for fear you might hit them."
The phenomenally powerful master vampire who runs the city's "underworld"? Runs a pizza joint. Literally. As in, he cooks there. BECAUSE HE CAN.
And the villain! The villain is an EEEEVIL drug dealer! You know, completely banned, beyond the pale, untouchable burn-you-at-the-stake drugs.... like INSULIN. He sells A CURE FOR ALZHEIMERS. Want your cancer treated? EEEEEEEVILMAN will hook your ass up! But he has to keep it a secret, because BIOLOGY IS ILLEGAL (see also: why everyone is terrified of tomatoes). They get 3/4 of the way through the first book before the author remembers that this is the BAD GUY and has him randomly murder an innocent man in front of witnesses to remind us which side we're supposed to be on.
Oh, hey, want to catch a leprechaun? The best trick is to slap some charmed handcuffs on 'em. And by "charmed" I mean you need a pink heart, a yellow moon, an orange star, and a green clover....
I hate these books so much. I bought the rest of the series and plan to have a wonderful time yelling at them as I read them, because they're like crack. They're *so absurd* that they're hilarious, and yet nobody inside them ever acknowledges just how goddamn wacky they are - they're done completely straightfaced!
And if you can't laugh at the demon's antics and his constant "oooh, I'm a dick! I'm gonna getcha! Them's GOOD EATS! And now I'm going to just be a jerk again, just because I can!" antics, you have no soul. But he will sell you one, cheap!
* The first three Dresden Files books. There was a boxed set, and everyone keeps telling me to read Jim Butcher. So now I has them.
* The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue, and Saturn's Children by Charlie Stross. Because I keep meaning to get these. I like giving money to
autopope.* John Scalzi's "Agent To The Stars". Because I'd like him to win a bet about how releasing the book for free online drives up print sales. And also because I hate reading non-physical book-length documents - they're inconvenient.
* David Weber's "Storm From The Shadows". Because I loves me some space opera crack. I really don't care if you can always figure out who's unambiguously wrong by checking their opinions again Harrington's[1] or that the "oooh, scary slavers" appeared out of nowhere to attain Monster Heel status with an entirely undeserved blowjob push a couple of books back, pushing aside the bad guys we all wanted to pay to see lose - the important part is that we've got high-adventure Age Of Sail-ish books with hilarious characters. It's like Horatio Nelson and Horatio Hornblower were given lasercannons, people. You cannot go wrong giving a lasercannon to Admiral Nelson.
But yeah. I went into the bookshop with the intention of buying just one book. And then I just kept seeing *just one more*....
(PS: Massive Twilight rack, I weep for humanity. Orson Scott Card reduced to a single copy of Ender's Game, shelved up top in a corner? That makes me a little more optimistic for the future of the species.)
[1]: Disagree with Honor Harrington = absolutely always wrong. Agreeing with Harrington doesn't mean *right*, but disagreeing is ALWAYS wrong and agreeing may mean that you're still wrong, but at least you're the least wrong possible under the circumstances.